Kentucky Men’s Tennis Defeats Virginia, 4-1

After falling behind in doubles, the Kentucky (6-2) men’s tennis team came back to defeat Virginia (3-3), 4-1, inside the Boar’s Head Sports Club on Sunday afternoon.

Virginia, the 2017 NCAA National Champions, had only lost five times at home since the 2006 season coming into today’s match. Two of those losses have come this season, two in 2016 and one in 2012. UVA won 94 consecutive home matches between 2006-2012.

The Wildcats went down in doubles early as the duo of Alex Dominguez and Kento Yamada fell to Gianni Ross and Kyrylo Tsygura, 6-2. UK punched back when Ryo Matsumura and Gus Benson beat Aswin Lizen and Spencer Bozsik, 6-2. The deciding match on court one was hard fought, as Cesar Bourgois and Enzo Wallart fell to Matthew Lord and Ammar Alhaqbani, 7-6 (1) to hand UVA a 1-0 lead.

Kentucky answered with four-straight singles victories and has not lost a singles match in four-straight matches.

No. 77 Trey Yates tied the match when he beat Lord, 6-3, 6-2. Yates improved to 5-1 this season and 2-0 as the No. 4 singles player. He is currently riding a three match winning streak.

The Wildcats took the lead when Austin Hussey took down Bozsik, 6-3, 6-1. Hussey is 4-2 this season and has won in consecutive matches. UK kept the momentum going when Kento Yamada defeated Tsygura shortly after Hussey won. Yamada is 5-1 in his debut for the Wildcats and is 3-0 on the fifth court.

The win was clinched for UK by Wallart, who earned a 7-5, 6-1 win over Alhaqbani. Wallart is a perfect 6-0 this season, and has two wins as each the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 player.

The first two courts were still in action when play was called. No. 34 Ryo Matsumura was up 7-5, 4-2 when Kentucky won the match. No. 84 Will Bushamuka was down 6-1, 6-6 at that time.

Kentucky will be back in action on Sunday, Feb. 11 when UK travels to Durham, North Carolina to take on Duke. First serve is set for 1 p.m.